(Swans - September 26, 2005)
Talking heads feed us so many lines we can't swallow as their words fill
our mouths. When news turned to dogma no one told us, so we've been
singing their headlines as gospel. Then you'll hear some talking head
and say he's so on target, right in line with your views, but whose line
is it? Sometimes you may wonder, but we hear so much about so little
it's hard to find head space for wondering.

But who are you to fire a line of questions? You have no platform. If
you want one, get in line. It's a free country; speak your mind. But the
line leads up and down an Escher staircase where you ascend only to find
yourself at the bottom again. You're free to speak on a soapbox in your
living room but the media is spoken for. So just get comfy and sit
still. You're the target: you're the target audience. You've been
studied, watched, surveyed, polled, and spied on all, they say, to serve
you better.

You're also free to drive a Hummer to buy Diet Coke, restructured food,
and a list of pills without even stopping to wonder if any of it makes
sense. We're slaves to addictions, desires, debts, and successes; a fine
line wavers between servitude and freedom. We're slaves to the servants
we elect to serve us.

So we crave their food and, oh, how we crave the happiness products can
buy. A woman is sold beauty in boxes of face paint and sprays; she can
buy body parts and have her face sculpted with cookie-cutter knives. A
man can invest in being loved, too, with some sculpting, a fancy car and
some hair. When packaging is pretty enough it's so tempting to buy we
may even forget to peek inside. There's a line at every store in the
mall. Buy love, get fulfillment -- half off.

It's all about things -- innocuous things, moderately useful things,
obliquely important things, beautiful things, and dangerous things,
too. Dangerous food, toxic breasts, and deadly diet pills, but aren't we
pretty things? Product lines can save you from wrinkling, crying,
thinking, dying, or being just plain ugly. Food can make us happy and
booze can make us fun; we never see bloated drunks on billboards or that
sexy model kneeling by the bowl. It's no wonder I believe I can eat
enough to fill my soul.

We drive from point A to point B where we consume then go home. As we
drive, news pitches and ad broadcasts penetrate our brains. You don't
even notice when a billboard takes the space where you were about to
imagine something fantastic but, instead, you think of car insurance.

We talk about thinking outside the box and drawing outside the lines,
but we mostly pretty much toe the line. We don't always care how much
yarn they spin; just give us a great bottom line. Sell us shirts that
say "freedom"; tell us our diseases are prestigious because poor
countries don't get them; tell us our nation cares for the world; tell
us how to scorn dissenters who step out of line. The lines are tangling
in our heads; they're yarns knitting themselves while we sleep into
patterns shaped like logos and flags. They're stitching the words: "God
Bless America," where we might have thought, instead, "God Bless the
World."

Linda Eve Diamond is a multi-faceted freelance writer. Her poetry has
won editor's choice in the Coffee House Press literary journal award and
has been published in a number of literary journals; selected poems have
been featured on WMID 1340AM in Atlantic City. She has two business
books coming out this year and is completing a book on listening.
Currently, Linda serves on the board of the International Listening
Association (ILA), though her political writings in no way speak for the
ILA, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to the study, practice and
development of listening.

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